75 of the Hardest Riddles (With Answers) to Test Your Brain
Challenge yourself with some of the hardest riddles we could find so you can keep your mind sharp! As you tackle these tricky brain teasers, you'll engage your mind in a way that few other activities can.
The beauty of riddles lies in their ability to make us think outside the box. They force us to analyze and interpret clues in ways we wouldn't normally consider. Sometimes that means wordplay; other times, it just means looking at the world in a different way. Brain teasers like these can help you stay sharp, improve problem-solving skills and even provide a bit of fun along the way.
Ready to test your limits? Read on for the top 75 hardest riddles with answers, each carefully chosen to challenge even the most seasoned riddle-solvers.
10 Tricky Riddles About Words
1. What word has three consecutive double letters?
Answer: Bookkeeper.
2. Which word, when written in all capital letters, looks the same when viewed upside down?
Answer: SWIMS.
3. What has only two words but thousands of letters?
Answer: The post office.
4. What English word has the same pronunciation even after you remove four of its five letters?
Answer: Queue.
5. What word is spelled the same forwards, backwards and upside down?
Answer: NOON.
6. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short.
7. I’m a word of letters three; add two and fewer there will be. What am I?
Answer: Few.
8. What word has 10 letters and starts with gas?
Answer: Automobile.
9. How many letters are in the alphabet?
Answer: The correct answer could be 26, but there are eleven letters in "the alphabet."
10. If you throw me out the window, you’ll leave a grieving wife, but drop me in the middle of a door, and you might just save a life. What am I?
Answer: The letter N.
10 Math Riddles
1. If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: Nine.
2. I am a three-digit number. My tens digit is five more than my ones digit. My hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I?
Answer: 194.
3. When you multiply me by any other number, the answer will always remain the same. What number am I?
Answer: Zero.
4. I am an odd number. Take away one letter, and I become even. What number am I?
Answer: Seven.
5. How many times can you subtract 10 from 100?
Answer: Once. After the first subtraction, you’re subtracting from 90.
6. What number, when multiplied by itself, gives the same result as adding it to itself?
Answer: 2.
7. Divide 30 by half and add 10. What do you get?
Answer: 70, because 30 ÷ 0.5 = 60.
8. A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What time is it?
Answer: 1:45. The man gave away a total of 25 cents (a quarter) to two people. "A quarter to 2:00" is another way of saying 1:45.
9. Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?
Answer: Neither, they both weigh a pound.
10. I add 5 to 9 and get 2. The answer is correct, but how?
Answer: When it is 9 a.m., adding 5 hours makes it 2 p.m.
10 Tough Riddles About Places
1. There is a one-story house in which everything is yellow. Yellow walls, yellow doors, yellow furniture. What color are the stairs?
Answer: There aren’t any stairs; it’s a one-story house.
2. The person who makes it sells it. The person who buys it never uses it. The person who uses it never knows they’re using it. What is it?
Answer: A coffin.
3. What building has the most stories?
Answer: The library.
4. If you’re running a race and pass the person in second place, what place are you in?
Answer: Second place.
5. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
Answer: A stamp.
6. What room do ghosts avoid?
Answer: The living room.
7. The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
Answer: Footsteps.
8. What has keys but can't open locks?
Answer: A piano.
9. I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and rivers but no water. What am I?
Answer: A map.
10. What can fill a room but takes up no space?
Answer: Light.
10 Riddles About Time
1. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
Answer: The letter M.
2. What has hands but can’t clap?
Answer: A clock.
3. What flies without wings?
Answer: Time.
4. Some months have 30 days, and some months have 31 days. How many have 28?
Answer: All of them.
5. What’s something that never waits for anyone but always keeps moving forward?
Answer: Time.
6. What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every race?
Answer: The letter E.
7. If it took eight men 10 hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
Answer: None, it's already built.
8. What is always in front of you but can’t be seen?
Answer: The future.
9. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday or Sunday?
Answer: Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
10. Yesterday is always before today. But there is a place where yesterday always follows today. Where?
Answer: The dictionary.
5 Riddles About Nature
1. What has roots that nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up it goes, and yet never grows?
Answer: A mountain.
2. I’m not alive, but I can grow. I don’t have lungs, but I need air. What am I?
Answer: Fire.
3. What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?
Answer: A river.
4. My mother is water, my father's the sky. I'm grey when wet, and white when dry. What am I?
Answer: A cloud.
5. I can smash holes in ships and roofs, but a bright day is all you need to stop me.
Answer: A storm.
15 Riddles With Wordplay
1. A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him. Right after, they enjoy a lovely dinner together. How is this possible?
Answer: She took a photo of him and developed it.
2. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What did you eat?
Answer: Corn.
3. I can be cracked, made, told and played. What am I?
Answer: A joke.
4. I have branches but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?
Answer: A bank.
5. I’m tall when I’m young and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?
Answer: A candle.
6. What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg.
7. What begins with T, ends with T and has T in it?
Answer: A teapot.
8. What has a head, a tail, is brown and has no legs?
Answer: A penny.
9. What gets sharper the more you use it?
Answer: Your brain.
10. What is one thing that all wise men, regardless of their politics or religion, have to agree is between heaven and Earth?
Answer: And.
11. What has 18 legs and catches flies?
Answer: A baseball team.
12. What word contains all 26 letters?
Answer: Alphabet.
13. What word is always spelled incorrectly?
Answer: Incorrectly.
14. What has many words but never speaks?
Answer: A book.
15. What has 13 hearts but no other organs?
Answer: A deck of cards.
10 Riddles About Animals and Plants
1. What has a heart that doesn’t beat?
Answer: An artichoke.
2. What has ears but cannot hear?
Answer: Corn.
3. What animal can jump higher than a house?
Answer: Any animal, because houses can’t jump.
4. Though my ears look like wings, I can't even jump. What am I?
Answer: An elephant.
5. I have no legs, no lungs, no belly and I speak through my tongue. What am I?
Answer: A snake.
6. The alphabet goes from A to Z but I go Z to A. What am I?
Answer: A zebra.
7. I have a mane, but I’m not a lion and I wear my shoes to bed. What am I?
Answer: A horse.
8. What peels like an onion but still remains whole?
Answer: A lizard.
9. I row with four paddles but never leave home.
Answer: A turtle.
10. I'm the only bug you can play as a sport.
Answer: Cricket.
5 Riddles About Life and Philosophy
1. What can’t be seen, can’t be felt, can’t be heard and can’t be smelt? It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills.
Answer: The dark.
2. What is greater than God, more evil than the devil; the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, you’ll die?
Answer: Nothing.
3. You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don’t see a single person on the boat. Why?
Answer: All the people were married.
4. What can be broken but is never held?
Answer: A promise.
5. What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?
Answer: A human being (during each stage of life).
We created this article in conjunction with AI technology, then made sure it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.
Original article: 75 of the Hardest Riddles (With Answers) to Test Your Brain
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